England manager Gareth Southgate has said Jack Grealish and his Manchester City teammates should be careful not to cross the line with their partying following their jubilant celebrations after winning the Champions League last week.
Grealish was the focus of national media attention after days of partying during City’s Treble-winning celebrations, which included a trip to Ibiza in between lifting the Champions League title over Inter Milan in Istanbul last Saturday and their bus parade in Manchester two days later.
While Southgate did not criticise Grealish personally, he said he had spoken to his side’s City contingent about their actions after they arrived at the national team’s training camp.
“There is a line,” Southgate said on Thursday ahead of England’s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia.”What is different is that everyone posts everything [on social media]. I wouldn’t have liked a few of my nights out to be posted publicly. My generation would have been in a lot more problems.”
Southgate also indicated he will look to rest the City players for Friday’s game against Malta.
“In our head we weren’t thinking of including the City players for this game. I have spoken with the players. We have talked about where the focus needs to be, where we need them to be and acknowledged what they have experienced and that’s for me to manage.
“We’ve been through this scenario three or four times in the last few years with our players leading into games. It’s a huge occasion.
“We’ve got a lot of our players in for the full training week and we were able to work tactically. And we needed to give those guys [City’s players] the time to take everything in. But point No. 1, they all wanted to come in to be with the group, which is fantastic.”
After Malta, England then host North Macedonia at Wembley on Wednesday.
